Alcaraz and the slab of the two sets against

Carlos Alcaraz goes so extremely fast and his career takes place at such a dizzying pace that, on many occasions, he makes us forget that he is only 20 years old and until very recently he was competing with kids who were not even of legal age. “We have to take good care of him, he is a kid. “If we want it to last, we must protect it together,” people around him tend to say, worried about the immense wave of popularity that surrounds the tennis player. The Murcian, knocked out by Daniil Medvedev in the semifinals in New York by losing 7-6(3), 6-1, 3-6 and 6-3, in 3h 18m, has somehow spoiled the fans with a regularity and records that are still extraordinary, totally unusual. So says the story.

In some way, Alcaraz is a prisoner in his golden prison, where he has managed to reach based on exceptionalities and where most professionals will not even come close. Therefore, despite the fact that he has only been on the circuit for a couple of years and his youth, being a player yet to be developed, each stumble is examined with a magnifying glass and draws attention. He, in any case, preserves the self-critical spirit that he has treasured since he began playing and interprets that today, defeats bring him more than victories. He gave a frank speech after losing at Roland Garros, admitting that he had come up big against Novak Djokovic in the semifinals, and gave another candid analytical exercise after bowing to Medvedev at the Arthur Ashe.

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Even though you already have a fabulous toolkit, you still lack answers to decipher some circumstances. For example, the one raised by the Russian. Patient, Medvedev (27 years old) returned and returned from the bottom, and thus destabilized him; He avoided the melee in which he fell the two times they had met this season, Indian Wells and Wimbledon, and opted to temporize and apply chloroform to the match. Faced with this scenario, the Spaniard insisted on finishing the point too quickly in some decisive moments that ended up taking their toll; as an example, the four break options that he wasted in the final stretch.

Alcaraz volleys during the match against Medvedev.Manu Fernandez (AP)

“I haven’t been able to find solutions,” Alcaraz said in the conference room. “I thought it was better in that sense, when the game is not going well, but after this I am going to change my mind. I don’t have enough maturity to handle this type of match, so I have to learn,” said the player from El Palmar, who until now has more than proven to be a hardhead capable of responding to the demands of long distance – nine wins and one. single defeat in the five-set matches – but at the same time he has not been able to turn around the matches in which he has initially lost the first two sets. Specifically, he has lost the six that he has played so far.

Straight to Asia

Against the wind, in 2021 he could not overcome the German Jan-Lennard Struff at Roland Garros or Medvedev himself at Wimbledon; The following year, it was Matteo Berrettini (Australia), Alexander Zverev (Roland Garros) and Jannik Sinner (Wimbledon) who aborted their attempts to react. He managed to equal Berrettini, but fell short, and against Zverev and Sinner he could only finally scratch a set.

Eroded by the tough North American tour of the summer, the Spaniard – 14 matches in a month, practically one for every two days – has chosen to slow down, and instead of traveling to Valencia to compete in the group stage of the Davis Cup He will go home to regain his strength. With his body punished, he prefers to be conservative. A year ago, when he was crowned in New York, he gave up taking a truce and traveled directly to help the team captained then by Sergi Bruguera – today by David Ferrer – to gain access to the November Finals. He arrived at La Fonteta with his tongue hanging out and his chassis suffered. Shortly after, in October, he suffered an abdominal tear while playing in Paris-Bercy.

Alacaraz sprints during the semifinal. WILL OLIVER (EFE)

“I was very excited to go there, but I have to listen to my body after a very long tour. I need to stop and rest physically and mentally. The calendar is very demanding and there is still a lot of season left, I need to recharge my batteries,” she lamented through his social networks. For one reason or another, his presence on the national team has not been easy until now. Two years ago, when he was going to make his debut, the coronavirus prevented him from entering the final phase held at the Casa de Campo Rockódromo in Madrid, and the circumstance was repeated last year, when the injury sustained in Bercy kept him from new to the competition

Now, if his team’s plans do not go awry, the tennis player will recover to face the fall with maximum guarantees, which in principle includes a visit to Beijing and the Shanghai Masters 1000; Subsequently, his desire is to compete indoors in events such as Basel, Paris-Bercy and the Turin Masters Cup, for which he obtained the ticket after his success at Wimbledon. He was the first player to achieve it this season.

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